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" As I was writing, I realised I wasn't sufficiently extrovert to gather enough interesting souls with tall tales around me. I was no Louis Theroux. But neither was I interested in exploring my inner life in public, in the manner of a Jonathan Raban. "

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" Back when I was young, lists seemed like fences on the open range. But secretly, I was pleased to be corralled among other literary thoroughbreds. "

Clive Sinclair

Back

Lists

" Every year in late June, Custer's Last Stand is reenacted on the high plains of Montana. When Custer led out the 7th Cavalry in 2003 - the year I witnessed it - the audience stood and cheered with turbo-charged patriotism. "

" Even when she was alive, Esther Kreitman's novels, short stories and translations received far less attention than the work of her famous brothers, I. J. and Isaac Bashevis Singer. "

" I owe my discovery of the Hot Club of Cowtown to Kinky Friedman, leader of the Texas Jewboys. When I saw that Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys were headlining the 2003 Santa Clarita Cowboy Poetry and Music Festival, I thought it my duty to check out the band that had inspired the Texas Jewboys. "

" The summer of 1976 was so hot that bars of chocolate melted on the shelves before confectioners could sell them. "

" When I was growing up in north-west London, our milkman's cart was pulled by a horse, and cattle still grazed on the meadows near Church Farm. "

" I'm completely lacking any sense of religious belief, but I am superstitious. "

Clive Sinclair

Religious

Any

" I believe that there may well be a personal God out there - not a monotheistic God - that has got it in for me. "

Clive Sinclair

Believe

Personal

" This was the wonder of advertising; the complete absence of cynicism. It may have many mansions, but it has no room for Doubting Thomases. "

" Back in 1948, a monomaniac called Korczak resolved to impose Crazy Horse's likeness upon a mountain. It took 50 years to complete the head, which measures 90ft from crown to chin. By comparison, the four presidents at Mt Rushmore seem modest. "

" I had a Latin master who, for no rational reason whatsoever - I was a very quiet kid at school - just hated me. "

" In 1935, Faber & Faber published an anthology entitled 'My Best Western Story' in which the genre's leading practitioners contributed what they considered their finest. Alas, literature the stories ain't; they appear more like fossils from a spent mine. "

Clive Sinclair

Literature

" Tel Aviv is buzzing with so much life, you could bottle it and sell it as honey, and even Jerusalem has a certain fizz. But if you want to see anger, go to Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem on a Friday afternoon. "

" Everyone in Tel Aviv knows Yosl Bergner. In 2006, the mayor made him a Freeman of the City. Now he carries a card which allows him to park his car anywhere with impunity. If only he could drive. "

" The idea of the split personality is as old as Genesis. For a start, Eve was manufactured from Adam's rib. Then there's Cain and Abel, twins at war. They were followed by Esau and Jacob, likewise divisible into hairy and smooth types. "

" Santa Cruz is blessed not only with natural wonders, but also with gifted souls who can fashion nature's bounty into man-made treasures. "

" Deadwood lies at the northern tip of the Black Hills, where the land is ancient and rubbed smooth by time. The Black Hills are more rugged at their southern extremity, where bare granite forms pinnacles and spires. "

" For me, Jews and football go together like a horse and carriage. "

Clive Sinclair

Football

" In the 1880s, a weedy Easterner named Owen Wister had something like a nervous breakdown. Wyoming, with its wide-open spaces and healthy pursuits, was prescribed as a cure. Wister was immediately smitten by the taciturn cowboys and the rules imposed upon them by the cattle barons. "

Clive Sinclair

Rules

Nervous

" One-eyed Reuben 'Rooster' Cogburn is the role that finally delivered John Wayne his Oscar. "

" It would be a big mistake to think that Chekhov was a natural, that he did not have to work for his effects and singular style. "

Clive Sinclair

Natural

Style

" The word 'western' usually refers to movies, of course, but there is a literary tradition of the same name that pre-dates the moving picture and retains its vitality yet. "

" Babies are born bow-legged in South Dakota. By the age of 12, they can purchase guns. At 14, they can take their driving test. Fortunately, since the geographical area of South Dakota can accommodate both France and Germany, but has a population of only 750,000, the chances of hitting anything are pretty slim. "

" I'll tell you now that I hate myself for many reasons, but being Jewish is not one of them. "

" As Annie Proulx is to Wyoming, so is Jane Candia Coleman to Arizona. "

" I still see the world as a place of bitter irony and black humour, failed hopes, dashed plans. I hope to make my work sparer, to outgrow my desire to show off. "

" You have to turn a blind eye to politics in nearly all Westerns. "

" I do not mean for one second to suggest that 'White Doves at Morning' was written with a movie deal in mind. Certainly not. "

" Hinde Esther Kreitman is a forgotten literary foremother, her works largely lost, ignored and out of print. "

Clive Sinclair

Out

Works

" Of course the 19th century remained in blissful ignorance of post-modern irony, and the dime novels were made without end. "